Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly serious and learned admirers of the neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. I ...

, intending to complement or even supersede the neoclassical styles prevalent at the time. Gothic Revival draws upon features of medieval examples, including decorative patterns,

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, t ...

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and ...

s, and

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin ''labia'', lip), drip mould or dripstone, is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a ''pediment''. This mouldin ...

s. By the middle of the 19th century, Gothic had become the preeminent architectural style in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

, only to fall out of fashion in the 1880s and early 1890s. The Gothic Revival movement's roots are intertwined with philosophical movements associated with

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and a re-awakening of

high church The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originat ...

Anglo-Catholic Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches. The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglica ...

belief concerned by the growth of religious nonconformism. Ultimately, the "

ism" tradition of religious belief and style became known for its intrinsic appeal in the third quarter of the 19th century. Gothic Revival architecture varied considerably in its faithfulness to both the ornamental style and principles of construction of its medieval original, sometimes amounting to little more than pointed window frames and touches of Gothic decoration on a building otherwise on a wholly 19th-century plan and using contemporary materials and construction methods, most notably in the use of iron and, after the 1880s, steel in ways never seen in medieval exemplars. In parallel with the ascendancy of neo-Gothic styles in 19th-century England, interest spread to the rest of Europe, Australia, Africa and the Americas; the 19th and early 20th centuries saw the construction of very large numbers of Gothic Revival structures worldwide. The influence of Revivalism had nevertheless peaked by the 1870s. New architectural movements, sometimes related as in the Arts and Crafts movement, and sometimes in outright opposition, such as

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, ...

, gained ground, and by the 1930s the architecture of the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edward ...

was generally condemned or ignored. The later 20th century saw a revival of interest, manifested in the United Kingdom by the establishment of the

Victorian Society The Victorian Society is a UK amenity society and membership organisation that campaigns to preserve and promote interest in Victorian and Edwardian architecture and heritage built between 1837 and 1914 in England and Wales. It is a registered ...

in 1958.

Roots

The rise of evangelicalism in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw in England a reaction in the

movement which sought to emphasise the continuity between the established church and the pre-

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

Catholic church. Architecture, in the form of the Gothic Revival, became one of the main weapons in the high church's armoury. The Gothic Revival was also paralleled and supported by " medievalism", which had its roots in antiquarian concerns with survivals and curiosities. As "

industrialisation Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econ ...

" progressed, a reaction against machine production and the appearance of factories also grew. Proponents of the picturesque such as

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, ...

and

Augustus Pugin Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ( ; 1 March 181214 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and, ultimately, Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival st ...

took a critical view of industrial society and portrayed pre-industrial medieval society as a golden age. To Pugin, Gothic architecture was infused with the Christian values that had been supplanted by

classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...

and were being destroyed by

. Gothic Revival also took on political connotations; with the "rational" and "radical" Neoclassical style being seen as associated with

republicanism Republicanism is a political ideology centered on citizenship in a state organized as a republic. Historically, it emphasises the idea of self-rule and ranges from the rule of a representative minority or oligarchy to popular sovereignty. It ...

and

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for ...

(as evidenced by its use in the United States and to a lesser extent in Republican France), the more spiritual and traditional Gothic Revival became associated with

monarchism Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist ...

and

conservatism Conservatism is a Philosophy of culture, cultural, Social philosophy, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in r ...

, which was reflected by the choice of styles for the rebuilt government centres of the British parliament's

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...

in London, the Canadian Parliament Buildings in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

and the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest. In English literature, the architectural Gothic Revival and classical

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

gave rise to the Gothic novel genre, beginning with '' The Castle of Otranto'' (1764) by

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...

, and inspired a 19th-century genre of medieval poetry that stems from the pseudo-

bardic poetry Bardic poetry is the writings produced by a class of poets trained in the bardic schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. Most of the ...

of "

Ossian Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora'' (1763), and later combined under ...

". Poems such as " Idylls of the King" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson recast specifically modern themes in medieval settings of

Arthurian King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as ...

romance. In

German literature German literature () comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy and to a l ...

, the Gothic Revival also had a grounding in literary fashions.

Survival and revival

began at the Basilica of Saint Denis near Paris, and the

Cathedral of Sens Sens Cathedral (french: Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Sens) is a Catholic cathedral in Sens in Burgundy, eastern France. The cathedral, dedicated to Saint Stephen, is the seat of the Archbishop of Sens. Sens was the first cathedral to be built ...

in 1140 and ended with a last flourish in the early 16th century with buildings like Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster. However, Gothic architecture did not die out completely in the 16th century but instead lingered in on-going cathedral-building projects; at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

Universities, and in the construction of churches in increasingly isolated rural districts of England, France, Germany, the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi- confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ...

and in Spain. Londonderry Cathedral (completed 1633) was a major new structure in the

Perpendicular Gothic Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four- ...

style. In

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

, in 1646, the Baroque architect Carlo Rainaldi constructed Gothic vaults (completed 1658) for the Basilica of San Petronio in

, which had been under construction since 1390; there, the Gothic context of the structure overrode considerations of the current architectural mode.

Guarino Guarini Camillo Guarino Guarini (17 January 1624 – 6 March 1683) was an Italian architect of the Piedmontese Baroque, active in Turin as well as Sicily, France, and Portugal. He was a Theatine priest, mathematician, and writer.. Biography Guarini wa ...

, a 17th-century Theatine monk active primarily in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...

, recognized the "Gothic order" as one of the primary systems of architecture and made use of it in his practice. Likewise, Gothic architecture survived in an urban setting during the later 17th century, as shown in

and

, where some additions and repairs to Gothic buildings were considered to be more in keeping with the style of the original structures than contemporary Baroque.

Sir Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 church ...

's Tom Tower for Christ Church,

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

, and, later,

Nicholas Hawksmoor Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the princip ...

's west towers of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

, blur the boundaries between what is called Gothic survival and the Gothic Revival. Throughout France in the 16th and 17th centuries, churches such as St-Eustache continued to be built following Gothic forms cloaked in classical details, until the arrival of Baroque architecture. Strawberry Hill House 4 (29886640996)

During the mid-18th century rise of

, an increased interest and awareness of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

among influential connoisseurs created a more appreciative approach to selected

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

arts, beginning with church architecture, the tomb monuments of royal and noble personages, stained glass, and late Gothic illuminated manuscripts. Other Gothic arts, such as tapestries and metalwork, continued to be disregarded as barbaric and crude, however sentimental and nationalist associations with historical figures were as strong in this early revival as purely aesthetic concerns. German Romanticists (including philosopher and writer

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...

and architect

Karl Friedrich Schinkel Karl Friedrich Schinkel (13 March 1781 – 9 October 1841) was a Prussian architect, city planner An urban planner (also known as town planner) is a professional who practices in the field of town planning, urban planning or city planning. ...

), began to appreciate the

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

character of ruins—"picturesque" becoming a new aesthetic quality—and those mellowing effects of time that the Japanese call '' wabi-sabi'' and that

independently admired, mildly tongue-in-cheek, as "the true rust of the Barons' wars". The "Gothick" details of Walpole's Twickenham villa,

Strawberry Hill House Strawberry Hill House—often called simply Strawberry Hill—is a Gothic Revival villa that was built in Twickenham, London, by Horace Walpole (1717–1797) from 1749 onward. It is a typical example of the " Strawberry Hill Gothic" style of a ...

begun in 1749, appealed to the

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

tastes of the time, and were fairly quickly followed by James Talbot at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. By the 1770s, thoroughly neoclassical architects such as

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his ...

and James Wyatt were prepared to provide Gothic details in drawing-rooms, libraries and chapels and, for William Beckford at Fonthill in Wiltshire, a complete romantic vision of a Gothic abbey. Some of the earliest architectural examples of the revived are found in Scotland. Inveraray Castle, constructed from 1746 for the

Duke of Argyll Duke of Argyll ( gd, Diùc Earraghàidheil) is a title created in the peerage of Scotland in 1701 and in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1892. The earls, marquesses, and dukes of Argyll were for several centuries among the most powerful ...

, with design input from William Adam, displays the incorporation of turrets. The architectural historian John Gifford writes that the castellations were the "symbolic assertion of the still quasi-feudal power he dukeexercised over the inhabitants within his heritable jurisdictions". Most buildings were still largely in the established Palladian style, but some houses incorporated external features of the Scots baronial style. Robert Adam's houses in this style include Mellerstain and

Wedderburn Wedderburn may refer to: People * Alexander Wedderburn (disambiguation) * Bill Wedderburn, Baron Wedderburn of Charlton (1927–2012), British politician and legal scholar * Charles F. Wedderburn (1892–1917), United States Navy officer * Da ...

in Berwickshire and Seton Castle in East Lothian, but it is most clearly seen at Culzean Castle, Ayrshire, remodelled by Adam from 1777. The eccentric landscape designer Batty Langley even attempted to "improve" Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions. Basilica of Saint Clotilde Sanctuary, Paris, France - Diliff

Basilica of Saint Clotilde Sanctuary, Paris, France - Diliff

A younger generation, taking Gothic architecture more seriously, provided the readership for John Britton's series ''Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain'', which began appearing in 1807. In 1817,

Thomas Rickman Thomas Rickman (8 June 17764 January 1841) was an English architect and architectural antiquary who was a major figure in the Gothic Revival. He is particularly remembered for his ''Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture'' ...

wrote an ''Attempt...'' to name and define the sequence of Gothic styles in English ecclesiastical architecture, "a text-book for the architectural student". Its long antique title is descriptive: ''Attempt to discriminate the styles of English architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation; preceded by a sketch of the Grecian and Roman orders, with notices of nearly five hundred English buildings''. The categories he used were Norman, Early English, Decorated, and

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

. It went through numerous editions, was still being republished by 1881, and has been reissued in the 21st century. The most common use for Gothic Revival architecture was in the building of churches. Major examples of Gothic cathedrals in the U.S. include the cathedrals of

St. John the Divine John of Patmos (also called John the Revelator, John the Divine, John the Theologian) is the name traditionally given to the author of the Book of Revelation. The text of Revelation states that John was on Patmos, a Greek island where, according ...

and St. Patrick in New York City and the

Washington National Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral, is an American cathedral of the Episcopal Church. The cathedral is located in Washington, D.C., the ca ...

on Mount St. Alban in northwest Washington, D.C. One of the biggest churches in Gothic Revival style in Canada is Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. Gothic Revival architecture remained one of the most popular and long-lived of the many revival styles of architecture. Although it began to lose force and popularity after the third quarter of the 19th century in commercial, residential and industrial fields, some buildings such as churches, schools, colleges and universities were still constructed in the Gothic style, often known as "Collegiate Gothic", which remained popular in England, Canada and in the United States until well into the early to mid-20th century. Only when new materials, like steel and glass along with concern for function in everyday working life and saving space in the cities, meaning the need to build up instead of out, began to take hold did the Gothic Revival start to disappear from popular building requests.

Decorative

The revived Gothic style was not limited to architecture. Classical Gothic buildings of the 12th to 16th Centuries were a source of inspiration to 19th-century designers in numerous fields of work. Architectural elements such as pointed arches, steep-sloping roofs and fancy carvings like lace and lattice work were applied to a wide range of Gothic Revival objects. Some examples of Gothic Revivals influence can be found in heraldic motifs in coats of arms, painted furniture with elaborate painted scenes like the whimsical Gothic detailing in English furniture is traceable as far back as Lady Pomfret's house in Arlington Street, London (1740s), and Gothic fretwork in chairbacks and glazing patterns of bookcases is a familiar feature of Chippendale's ''Director'' (1754, 1762), where, for example, the three-part bookcase employs Gothic details with Rococo profusion, on a symmetrical form. Abbotsford in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lot ...

, rebuilt from 1816 by

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

and paid for by the profits from his, hugely successful, historical novels, exemplifies the "Regency Gothic" style. Gothic Revival also includes the reintroduction of medieval clothes and dances in historical re-enactments staged especially in the second part of the 19th century, although one of the first, the

Eglinton Tournament Eglinton can refer to: People * Earl of Eglinton, a title in the Peerage of Scotland *Geoffrey Eglinton (1927–2016), British chemist * Timothy Eglinton, a British biogeoscientist *William Eglinton (1857–1933), a British spiritualist medium an ...

of 1839, remains the most famous. By the mid-19th century, Gothic traceries and niches could be inexpensively re-created in

wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste Adhesive flakes that are mixed with water to pro ...

, and Gothic blind arcading could decorate a ceramic pitcher. Writing in 1857, J. G. Crace, an influential decorator from a family of influential interior designers, expressed his preference for the Gothic style: "In my opinion there is no quality of lightness, elegance, richness or beauty possessed by any other style... rin which the principles of sound construction can be so well carried out". The illustrated catalogue for the

Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...

of 1851 is replete with Gothic detail, from lacemaking and carpet designs to heavy machinery. Nikolaus Pevsner's volume on the exhibits at the Great Exhibition, ''High Victorian Design'' published in 1951, was an important contribution to the academic study of

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

taste and an early indicator of the later 20th century rehabilitation of Victorian architecture and the objects with which they decorated their buildings. In 1847, eight thousand British

crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

coins were minted in

proof Proof most often refers to: * Proof (truth), argument or sufficient evidence for the truth of a proposition * Alcohol proof, a measure of an alcoholic drink's strength Proof may also refer to: Mathematics and formal logic * Formal proof, a con ...

condition with the design using an ornate reverse in keeping with the revived style. Considered by collectors to be particularly beautiful, they are known as 'Gothic crowns'. The design was repeated in 1853, again in proof. A similar two shilling coin, the 'Gothic florin' was minted for circulation from 1851 to 1887.

Romanticism and nationalism

French neo-Gothic had its roots in the French medieval Gothic architecture, where it was created in the 12th century. Gothic architecture was sometimes known during the medieval period as the "Opus Francigenum", (the "French Art"). French scholar Alexandre de Laborde wrote in 1816 that "Gothic architecture has beauties of its own", which marked the beginning of the Gothic Revival in France. Starting in 1828, Alexandre Brogniart, the director of the

Sèvres porcelain manufactory Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known fo ...

, produced fired enamel paintings on large panes of plate glass, for King Louis-Philippe's

Chapelle royale de Dreux The Royal Chapel of Dreux (french: Chapelle royale de Dreux) situated in Dreux, France, is the traditional burial place of members of the House of Orléans. It is an important early building in the French adoption of Gothic Revival architecture, ...

, an important early French commission in Gothic taste, preceded mainly by some Gothic features in a few '' jardins paysagers''. P1020476 Paris VII Basilique Saint-Clotilde rwk

P1020476 Paris VII Basilique Saint-Clotilde rwk

The French Gothic Revival was set on sounder intellectual footings by a pioneer,

Arcisse de Caumont Arcisse de Caumont (20 August 1801, Bayeux – 16 April 1873) was a French historian and archaeologist. Biography Arcisse Caumont was born at Bayeux to François de Caumont and Marie-Louise de Mathan Hue. One of his mentors was Charles de Gervill ...

, who founded the Societé des Antiquaires de Normandie at a time when ''antiquaire'' still meant a connoisseur of antiquities, and who published his great work on architecture in French Normandy in 1830. The following year

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

's historical romance novel ''

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (french: Notre-Dame de Paris, translation=''Our Lady of Paris'', originally titled ''Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482'') is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story of ...

'' appeared, in which the great Gothic cathedral of Paris was at once a setting and a protagonist in a hugely popular work of fiction. Hugo intended his book to awaken a concern for the surviving Gothic architecture left in Europe, however, rather than to initiate a craze for neo-Gothic in contemporary life. In the same year that ''Notre-Dame de Paris'' appeared, the new French restored

Bourbon Bourbon may refer to: Food and drink * Bourbon whiskey, an American whiskey made using a corn-based mash * Bourbon barrel aged beer, a type of beer aged in bourbon barrels * Bourbon biscuit, a chocolate sandwich biscuit * A beer produced by ...

monarchy established an office in the Royal French Government of Inspector-General of Ancient Monuments, a post which was filled in 1833 by

Prosper Mérimée Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...

, who became the secretary of a new Commission des Monuments Historiques in 1837. This was the Commission that instructed

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (; 27 January 181417 September 1879) was a French architect and author who restored many prominent medieval landmarks in France, including those which had been damaged or abandoned during the French Revolution. H ...

to report on the condition of the

Abbey of Vézelay An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

in 1840. Following this, Viollet le Duc set out to restore most of the symbolic buildings in France including Notre Dame de Paris, Vézelay,

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the ...

Roquetaillade castle Roquetaillade (; Languedocien: ''Ròcatalhada'') is a former commune in the Aude department in southern France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Roquetaillade-et-Conilhac.Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey on its peaked coastal island, Pierrefonds, and Palais des Papes in

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the commune ha ...

. When France's first prominent neo-Gothic church was built, the Basilica of Saint-Clotilde, Paris, begun in 1846 and consecrated in 1857, the architect chosen was of German extraction, Franz Christian Gau, (1790–1853); the design was significantly modified by Gau's assistant, Théodore Ballu, in the later stages, to produce the pair of ''flèches'' that crown the west end. In Germany, there was a renewal of interest in the completion of

Cologne Cathedral Cologne Cathedral (german: Kölner Dom, officially ', English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archdiocese of ...

. Begun in 1248, it was still unfinished at the time of the revival. The 1820s "Romantic" movement brought a new appreciation of the building, and construction work began once more in 1842, marking a German return for Gothic architecture. St. Vitus Cathedral in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, begun in 1344, was also completed in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. The importance of the Cologne completion project in German-speaking lands has been explored by Michael J. Lewis, ''"The Politics of the German Gothic Revival: August Reichensperger"''. Reichensperger was himself in no doubt as to the cathedral's central position in Germanic culture; "Cologne Cathedral is German to the core, it is a national monument in the fullest sense of the word, and probably the most splendid monument to be handed down to us from the past". Because of Romantic nationalism in the early 19th century, the Germans, French and English all claimed the original Gothic architecture of the 12th century era as originating in their own country. The English boldly coined the term "Early English" for "Gothic", a term that implied Gothic architecture was an English creation. In his 1832 edition of ''Notre Dame de Paris'', author Victor Hugo said "Let us inspire in the nation, if it is possible, love for the national architecture", implying that "Gothic" is France's national heritage. In Germany, with the completion of Cologne Cathedral in the 1880s, at the time its summit was the world's tallest building, the cathedral was seen as the height of Gothic architecture. Other major completions of Gothic cathedrals were of Regensburger Dom (with twin

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

s completed from 1869 to 1872),

Ulm Münster Ulm Minster (german: Ulmer Münster) is a Lutheran church located in Ulm, State of Baden-Württemberg (Germany). It is currently the tallest church in the world. The church is the fifth-tallest structure built before the 20th century, with a ...

(with a 161-meter tower from 1890) and St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague (1844–1929). Cologne Germany Exterior-view-of-Cologne-Cathedral-01

In Belgium, a 15th-century church in

Ostend Ostend ( nl, Oostende, ; french: link=no, Ostende ; german: link=no, Ostende ; vls, Ostende) is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariake ...

burned down in 1896. King Leopold II funded its replacement, the Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's Church, a cathedral-scale design which drew inspiration from the neo-Gothic Votive Church in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and Cologne Cathedral. In

Mechelen Mechelen (; french: Malines ; traditional English name: MechlinMechelen has been known in English as ''Mechlin'', from where the adjective ''Mechlinian'' is derived. This name may still be used, especially in a traditional or historical contex ...

, the largely unfinished building drawn in 1526 as the seat of the Great Council of The Netherlands, was not actually built until the early 20th century, although it closely followed Rombout II Keldermans's Brabantine Gothic design, and became the 'new' north wing of the City Hall. In

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

, the Duomo's temporary façade erected for the Medici-House of Lorraine nuptials in 1588–1589, was dismantled, and the west end of the cathedral stood bare again until 1864, when a competition was held to design a new façade suitable to Arnolfo di Cambio's original structure and the fine

campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church (building), church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many ...

next to it. This competition was won by

Emilio De Fabris Emilio De Fabris (28 October 1808 – 3 June 1883) was an Italian architect best known for his design of the west facade of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence. De Fabris was born in Florence, Italy. He initially studied at the Academy of Fine ...

, and so work on his polychrome design and panels of

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

was begun in 1876 and completed by 1887, creating the Neo-Gothic western façade. Eastern Europe also saw much Revival construction; in addition to the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest, the Bulgarian National Revival saw the introduction of Gothic Revival elements into its vernacular ecclesiastical and residential architecture. The largest project of the Slavine School is the

Lopushna Monastery The Lopushna Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner ( bg, Лопушански манастир „Свети Йоан Предтеча“, ''Lopushanski manastir „Sveti Yoan Predtecha“'') is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery in northwestern Bulg ...

cathedral (1850–1853), though later churches such as Saint George's Church, Gavril Genovo display more prominent vernacular Gothic Revival features. In Scotland, while a similar Gothic style to that used further south in England was adopted by figures including Frederick Thomas Pilkington (1832–98) in secular architecture it was marked by the re-adoption of the Scots baronial style. Important for the adoption of the style in the early 19th century was Abbotsford, which became a model for the modern revival of the baronial style. Common features borrowed from 16th- and 17th-century houses included battlemented gateways, crow-stepped gables, pointed

turrets Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * M ...

and machicolations. The style was popular across Scotland and was applied to many relatively modest dwellings by architects such as William Burn (1789–1870),

David Bryce David Bryce FRSE FRIBA RSA (3 April 1803 – 7 May 1876) was a Scottish architect. Life Bryce was born at 5 South College Street in Edinburgh, the son of David Bryce (1763–1816) a grocer with a successful side interest in building. ...

(1803–76),

Edward Blore Edward Blore (13 September 1787 – 4 September 1879) was a 19th-century English landscape and architectural artist, architect and antiquary. Early career He was born in Derby, the son of the antiquarian writer Thomas Blore. Blore's bac ...

(1787–1879), Edward Calvert () and Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864–1929) and in urban contexts, including the building of Cockburn Street in Edinburgh (from the 1850s) as well as the National Wallace Monument at Stirling (1859–1869). The reconstruction of

Balmoral Castle Balmoral Castle () is a large estate house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a residence of the British royal family. It is near the village of Crathie, west of Ballater and west of Aberdeen. The estate and its original castle were boug ...

as a baronial palace and its adoption as a royal retreat from 1855 to 1858 confirmed the popularity of the style. In the United States, the first "Gothic stile" church (as opposed to churches with Gothic elements) was Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut. It was designed by

Ithiel Town Ithiel Town (October 3, 1784 – June 13, 1844) was an American architect and civil engineer. One of the first generation of professional architects in the United States, Town made significant contributions to American architecture in the f ...

between 1812 and 1814, while he was building his Federalist-style Center Church, New Haven next to this radical new "Gothic-style" church. Its cornerstone was laid in 1814, and it was consecrated in 1816. It predates St Luke's Church, Chelsea, often said to be the first Gothic-revival church in London. Though built of trap rock stone with arched windows and doors, parts of its tower and its battlements were wood. Gothic buildings were subsequently erected by Episcopal congregations in Connecticut at St John's in Salisbury (1823), St John's in Kent (1823–26) and St Andrew's in Marble Dale (1821–1823). These were followed by Town's design for Christ Church Cathedral (Hartford, Connecticut) (1827), which incorporated Gothic elements such as buttresses into fabric of the church. St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Troy, New York, was constructed in 1827–1828 as an exact copy of Town's design for Trinity Church, New Haven, but using local stone; due to changes in the original, St. Paul's is closer to Town's original design than Trinity itself. In the 1830s, architects began to copy specific English Gothic and Gothic Revival Churches, and these "'mature Gothic Revival' buildings made the domestic Gothic style architecture which preceded it seem primitive and old-fashioned". There are many examples of

Gothic Revival architecture in Canada Gothic Revival architecture in Canada is an historically influential style, with many prominent examples. The Gothic Revival was imported to Canada from Britain and the United States in the early 19th century, and rose to become the most popular s ...

. The first major structure was Notre-Dame Basilica in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...

, which was designed in 1824. The capital,

Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, was predominantly a 19th-century creation in the Gothic Revival style. The

Parliament Hill Parliament Hill (french: Colline du Parlement, colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings, and their archit ...

buildings were the preeminent example, of which the original library survives today (after the rest was destroyed by fire in 1916). Their example was followed elsewhere in the city and outlying areas, showing how popular the Gothic Revival movement had become. Other examples of Canadian Gothic Revival architecture in Ottawa are the Victoria Memorial Museum, (1905–08), the

Royal Canadian Mint }) is the mint of Canada and a Crown corporation, operating under the ''Royal Canadian Mint Act''. The shares of the Mint are held in trust for the Crown in right of Canada. The Mint produces all of Canada's circulation coins, and manufactur ...

, (1905–08), and the

Connaught Building The Connaught Building is a historic office building in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, owned by Public Services and Procurement Canada. It is located at 555 MacKenzie Avenue, just south of the American Embassy. To the east, the building looks out on the ...

, (1913–16), all by

David Ewart David Ewart, ISO (18 February 1841 – 6 June 1921) was a Canadian architect who served as Chief Dominion Architect from 1896 to 1914. As chief government architect he was responsible for many of the federal buildings constructed in this peri ...

Gothic as a moral force

Pugin and "truth" in architecture

In the late 1820s, A. W. N. Pugin, still a teenager, was working for two highly visible employers, providing Gothic detailing for luxury goods. For the Royal furniture makers Morel and Seddon he provided designs for redecorations for the elderly

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history. The original c ...

in a Gothic taste suited to the setting. For the royal silversmiths Rundell Bridge and Co., Pugin provided designs for silver from 1828, using the 14th-century Anglo-French Gothic vocabulary that he would continue to favour later in designs for the new Palace of Westminster. Between 1821 and 1838 Pugin and his father published a series of volumes of architectural drawings, the first two entitled, ''Specimens of Gothic Architecture'', and the following three, ''Examples of Gothic Architecture'', that were to remain both in print and the standard references for Gothic Revivalists for at least the next century. In ''Contrasts: or, a Parallel between the Noble Edifices of the Middle Ages, and similar Buildings of the Present Day'' (1836), Pugin expressed his admiration not only for medieval art but for the whole medieval ethos, suggesting that Gothic architecture was the product of a purer society. In ''The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture'' (1841), he set out his "two great rules of design: 1st, that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction or propriety; 2nd, that all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building". Urging modern craftsmen to seek to emulate the style of medieval workmanship as well as reproduce its methods, Pugin sought to reinstate Gothic as the true Christian architectural style. Pugin's most notable project was the

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...

in London, after its predecessor was largely destroyed in a fire in 1834. His part in the design consisted of two campaigns, 1836–1837 and again in 1844 and 1852, with the classicist

Charles Barry Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsi ...

as his nominal superior. Pugin provided the external decoration and the interiors, while Barry designed the symmetrical layout of the building, causing Pugin to remark, "All Grecian, Sir; Tudor details on a classic body".

Ruskin and Venetian Gothic

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and po ...

supplemented Pugin's ideas in his two influential theoretical works, '' The Seven Lamps of Architecture'' (1849) and ''The Stones of Venice'' (1853). Finding his architectural ideal in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, Ruskin proposed that Gothic buildings excelled above all other architecture because of the "sacrifice" of the stone-carvers in intricately decorating every stone. In this, he drew a contrast between the physical and spiritual satisfaction which a medieval craftsman derived from his work, and the lack of these satisfactions afforded to modern,

industrialised Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econom ...

labour. By declaring the Doge's Palace to be "the central building of the world", Ruskin argued the case for Gothic government buildings as Pugin had done for churches, though mostly only in theory. When his ideas were put into practice, Ruskin often disliked the result, although he supported many architects, such as Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward, and was reputed to have designed some of the corbel decorations for that pair's Oxford University Museum of Natural History. A major clash between the Gothic and Classical styles in relation to governmental offices occurred less than a decade after the publication of ''The Stones of Venice''. A public competition for the construction of a new

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament ...

saw the decision to award first place to a Gothic design by

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he starte ...

overturned by the Prime Minister,

Lord Palmerston Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...

, who successfully demanded a building in the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italia ...

style.

Ecclesiology and funerary style

In England, the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

was undergoing a revival of

and ritualist ideology in the form of the

Oxford Movement The Oxford Movement was a movement of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of O ...

, and it became desirable to build large numbers of new churches to cater for the growing population, and cemeteries for their hygienic burials. This found ready exponents in the universities, where the

ecclesiological movement The Cambridge Camden Society, known from 1845 (when it moved to London) as the Ecclesiological Society,Histo ...

was forming. Its proponents believed that Gothic was the ''only'' style appropriate for a parish church, and favoured a particular era of Gothic architecture – the " decorated". The Cambridge Camden Society, through its journal ''The Ecclesiologist'', was so savagely critical of new church buildings that were below its exacting standards and its pronouncements were followed so avidly that it became the epicentre of the flood of

Victorian restoration The Victorian restoration was the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria. It was not the same proce ...

that affected most of the Anglican cathedrals and parish churches in England and Wales. Exeter College Chapel, Oxford - Diliff

St Luke's Church, Chelsea, was a new-built Commissioner's Church of 1820–24, partly built using a grant of £8,333 towards its construction with money voted by

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...

as a result of the Church Building Act of 1818. It is often said to be the first Gothic Revival church in London, and, as Charles Locke Eastlake put it: "probably the only church of its time in which the main roof was groined throughout in stone". Nonetheless, the parish was firmly low church, and the original arrangement, modified in the 1860s, was as a "preaching church" dominated by the pulpit, with a small altar and wooden galleries over the nave aisle. The development of the private major metropolitan cemeteries was occurring at the same time as the movement; Sir William Tite pioneered the first cemetery in the Gothic style at West Norwood in 1837, with chapels, gates, and decorative features in the Gothic manner, attracting the interest of contemporary architects such as

George Edmund Street George Edmund Street (20 June 1824 – 18 December 1881), also known as G. E. Street, was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex. Stylistically, Street was a leading practitioner of the Victorian Gothic Revival. Though mainly an eccl ...

, Barry, and

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neocla ...

. The style was immediately hailed a success and universally replaced the previous preference for classical design. Not every architect or client was swept away by this tide. Although Gothic Revival succeeded in becoming an increasingly familiar style of architecture, the attempt to associate it with the notion of high church superiority, as advocated by Pugin and the ecclesiological movement, was anathema to those with ecumenical or nonconformist principles. Alexander "Greek" Thomson launched a famous attack; "We are told we should adopt othicbecause it is the Christian style, and this most impudent assertion has been accepted as sound doctrine even by earnest and intelligent Protestants; whereas it ought only to have force with those who believe that Christian truth attained its purest and most spiritual development at the period when this style of architecture constituted its corporeal form". Those rejecting the link between Gothic and Catholicism looked to adopt it solely for its aesthetic romantic qualities, to combine it with other styles, or look to northern European

Brick Gothic Brick Gothic (german: Backsteingotik, pl, Gotyk ceglany, nl, Baksteengotiek) is a specific style of Gothic architecture common in Northeast and Central Europe especially in the regions in and around the Baltic Sea, which do not have reso ...

for a more plain appearance; or in some instances all three of these, as at the non-denominational

Abney Park Cemetery Abney Park cemetery is one of the "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries in London, England. Abney Park in Stoke Newington in the London Borough of Hackney is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney, D ...

in east London, designed by William Hosking FSA in 1840.

Viollet-le-Duc and Iron Gothic

France had lagged slightly in entering the neo-Gothic scene, but produced a major figure in the revival in

. As well as a powerful and influential theorist, Viollet-le-Duc was a leading architect whose genius lay in restoration. He believed in restoring buildings to a state of completion that they would not have known even when they were first built, theories he applied to his restorations of the walled city of

, and to Notre-Dame and

Sainte Chapelle The Sainte-Chapelle (; en, Holy Chapel) is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine in Paris, France. ...

in Paris. In this respect he differed from his English counterpart Ruskin, as he often replaced the work of mediaeval stonemasons. His rational approach to Gothic stood in stark contrast to the revival's romanticist origins. Throughout his career he remained in a quandary as to whether iron and masonry should be combined in a building. Iron had in fact been used in Gothic buildings since the earliest days of the revival. It was only with Ruskin and the archaeological Gothic's demand for historical truth that iron, whether it was visible or not, was deemed improper for a Gothic building. Ultimately, the utility of iron won out: "substituting a cast iron shaft for a granite, marble or stone column is not bad, but one must agree that it cannot be considered as an innovation, as the introduction of a new principle. Replacing a stone or wooden

lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. In the case o ...

by an iron breastsummer is very good". He strongly opposed illusion, however: reacting against the casing of a cast iron pillar in stone, he wrote; "il faut que la pierre paraisse bien être de la pierre; le fer, du fer; le bois, du bois" (stone must appear to be stone; iron, iron; wood, wood). Gothic Bridge 28 east cloudy jeh

The arguments against modern construction materials began to collapse in the mid-19th century as great prefabricated structures such as the glass and iron Crystal Palace and the glazed courtyard of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History were erected, which appeared to embody Gothic principles. Between 1863 and 1872 Viollet-le-Duc published his ''Entretiens sur l'architecture'', a set of daring designs for buildings that combined iron and masonry. Though these projects were never realised, they influenced several generations of designers and architects, notably

Antoni Gaudí Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (; ; 25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect from Spain known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, '' sui generis'' style. Most are located in Barc ...

in Spain and, in England, Benjamin Bucknall, Viollet's foremost English follower and translator, whose masterpiece was

Woodchester Mansion Woodchester Mansion is an unfinished, Gothic revival mansion house in Nympsfield, Gloucestershire, England. It is on the site of an earlier house known as Spring Park. The mansion is a Grade I listed building. The mansion was abandoned by its bu ...

. The flexibility and strength of cast-iron freed neo-Gothic designers to create new structural Gothic forms impossible in stone, as in

Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape designer, best known as the co-designer, along with his protégé and junior partner Frederick Law Olmsted, of what would become New Yor ...

's cast-iron Gothic bridge in

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

, New York dating from the 1860. Vaux enlisted openwork forms derived from Gothic blind-arcading and window tracery to express the spring and support of the arching bridge, in flexing forms that presage

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Moder ...

Collegiate Gothic

In the United States, Collegiate Gothic was a late and literal resurgence of the English Gothic Revival, adapted for American university campuses. The term "Collegiate Gothic" originated from American architect

Alexander Jackson Davis Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis (July 24, 1803 – January 14, 1892), was an American architect, known particularly for his association with the Gothic Revival style. Education Davis was born in New York City and studied at t ...

's handwritten description of his own "English Collegiate Gothic Mansion" of 1853 for the Harrals of Bridgeport. By the 1890s, the movement was known as "Collegiate Gothic". The firm of

Cope & Stewardson Cope and Stewardson (1885–1912) was a Philadelphia architecture firm founded by Walter Cope and John Stewardson, and best known for its Collegiate Gothic building and campus designs. Cope and Stewardson established the firm in 1885, and were j ...

was an early and important exponent, transforming the campuses of

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United Sta ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

in the 1890s. In 1872, Abner Jackson, the President of

Trinity College, Connecticut Trinity College is a private liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded as Washington College in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut. Coeducational since 1969, the college enrolls 2,235 students. Trini ...

, visited Britain, seeking models and an architect for a planned new campus for the college. William Burges was chosen and he drew up a four-quadrangled masterplan, in his Early French style. Lavish illustrations were produced by Axel Haig. However, the estimated cost, at just under one million dollars, together with the sheer scale of the plans, thoroughly alarmed the College Trustees and only one-sixth of the plan was executed, the present Long Walk, with Francis H. Kimball acting as local, supervising, architect, and

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co-d ...

laying out the grounds. Hitchcock considers the result, "perhaps the most satisfactory of all of urges'sworks and the best example anywhere of Victorian Gothic collegiate architecture". The movement continued into the 20th century, with Cope & Stewardson's campus for Washington University in St. Louis (1900–09), Charles Donagh Maginnis's buildings at

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifi ...

(1910s) (including Gasson Hall),

Ralph Adams Cram Ralph Adams Cram (December 16, 1863 – September 22, 1942) was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and Church (building), ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic Revival style. Cram and ...

's design for the Princeton University Graduate College (1913), and James Gamble Rogers' reconstruction of the campus of

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

(1920s).

Charles Klauder Charles Zeller Klauder (February 9, 1872 – October 30, 1938) was an American architect best known for his work on university buildings and campus designs, especially his Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, the first educat ...

's Gothic Revival skyscraper on the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

's campus, the Cathedral of Learning (1926) exhibited very Gothic stylings both inside and out, while utilizing modern technologies to make the building taller.

Vernacular adaptations and the revival in the Antipodes

Carpenter Gothic Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic or Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structure ...

houses and small churches became common in North America and other places in the late 19th century. These structures adapted Gothic elements such as pointed arches, steep gables, and towers to traditional American

light-frame construction Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called ''mass wall ...

. The invention of the scroll saw and mass-produced wood moldings allowed a few of these structures to mimic the florid fenestration of the High Gothic. But, in most cases, Carpenter Gothic buildings were relatively unadorned, retaining only the basic elements of pointed-arch windows and steep gables. A well-known example of Carpenter Gothic is a house in Eldon, Iowa, that

Grant Wood Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942) was an American painter and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for '' American Gothic'' (1930 ...

used for the background of his painting American Gothic.

New Zealand and Australia

Benjamin Mountfort Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort (13 March 1825 – 15 March 1898) was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of the country's most prominent 19th-century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's unique ...

, born in Britain, trained in Birmingham, and subsequently resident in

Canterbury, New Zealand Canterbury ( mi, Waitaha) is a region of New Zealand, located in the central-eastern South Island. The region covers an area of , making it the largest region in the country by area. It is home to a population of The region in its current f ...

imported the Gothic Revival style to his adopted country and designed Gothic Revival churches in both wood and stone, notably in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

Frederick Thatcher The Reverend Frederick Thatcher (1814 – 19 October 1890) was an English and New Zealand architect and clergyman. He was born at Hastings to a long-established Sussex family. He practised as an architect in London from 1835 and was one of the ...

designed wooden churches in the Gothic Revival style, for example Old St. Paul's, Wellington, contributing to what has been described as New Zealand's "one memorable contribution to world architecture". St Mary of the Angels, Wellington by Frederick de Jersey Clere is in the French Gothic style, and was the first Gothic design church built in ferro-concrete. The style also found favour in the southern New Zealand city of

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, where the wealth brought in by the Otago Gold Rush of the 1860s allowed for substantial stone edifices to be constructed, using hard, dark

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of d ...

stone and a local white limestone, Oamaru stone, among them Maxwell Bury's University of Otago Registry Building and the Dunedin Law Courts by John Campbell. Australia, in particular in Melbourne and Sydney, saw the construction of large numbers of Gothic Revival buildings. William Wardell (1823–1899) was among the country's most prolific architects; born and trained in England, after emigrating his most notable Australian designs include

St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne The Cathedral Church and Minor Basilica of Saint Patrick (colloquially St Patrick's Cathedral) is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, and seat of its archbishop, currently Peter Comensoli ...

and St John's College and St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney. In common with many other 19th century architects, Wardell could deploy different styles at the command of his clients; Government House, Melbourne is

. His banking house for the English, Scottish and Australian Bank in Melbourne has been described as "the Australian masterpiece of neo-Gothic". This claim has also been made for

Edmund Blacket Edmund Thomas Blacket (25 August 1817 – 9 February 1883) was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and Goulburn Cathedral (St. Saviour), St. Saviour's Cathedral, Goulbu ...

's MacLaurin Hall at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one o ...

, which sits in the quadrangle complex described as "arguably the most important group of Gothic and Tudor Revival style architecture in Australia".

Global Gothic

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the architectural historian, noted the spread of the Gothic Revival in the 19th and early 20th centuries, "wherever English culture extended – as far as the West Coast of the United States and to the remotest Antipodes". The

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading post ...

, almost at its geographic peak at the height of the Gothic Revival, assisted or compelled this spread. The English-speaking dominions, Canada, Australia particularly the state of Victoria and New Zealand generally adopted British styles in toto (see above); other parts of the empire saw regional adaptations. India saw the construction of many such buildings, in styles termed Indo-Saracenic or Hindu-Gothic. Notable examples include Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) and the

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel The Taj Mahal Palace is a heritage, five-star, luxury hotel in the Colaba area of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, situated next to the Gateway of India. Built in the Saracenic Revival style, it opened in 1903 as the Taj Mahal Hotel and has histo ...

, both in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

. At the hill station of

Shimla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the States and union territories of India, northern Indian state of Himachal Prade ...

, the

summer capital A summer capital is a city used as an administrative capital during extended periods of particularly hot summer weather. The term is mostly of relevance in historical contexts of political systems with ruling classes that would migrate to a summ ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, an attempt was made to recreate the

Home counties The home counties are the counties of England that surround London. The counties are not precisely defined but Buckinghamshire and Surrey are usually included in definitions and Berkshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent are also often inclu ...

in the foothills of the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over ...

. Although Gothic Revival was the predominant architectural style, alternatives were also deployed;

Rashtrapati Niwas The Rashtrapati Niwas (), formerly known as Viceregal Lodge, is located on the Observatory Hills of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India. It was formerly the residence of the British Viceroy of India. It houses some of the most ancient articles ...

, the former Viceregal Lodge, has been variously described as Scottish Baronial Revival,

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architectur ...

and

Jacobethan The Jacobethan or Jacobean Revival architectural style is the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance (1 ...

. Other examples in the east include the late 19th century

Church of the Saviour, Beijing The Church of the Saviour ( zh, t=救世主堂, s=救世主堂), also known as the Xishiku Church ( zh, t=西什庫天主堂, s=西什库天主堂) or Beitang ( zh, t=北堂, s=北堂, l=the North Church, links=no), is a historic Roman Catholic c ...

, constructed on the orders of the

Guangxu Emperor The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, w ...

and designed by the Catholic missionary and architect Alphonse Favier; and the Wat Niwet Thammaprawat in the Bang Pa-In Royal Palace in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populatio ...

, by the Italian

Joachim Grassi Joachim Grassi (Italian spelling Gioachino, 1837 – 19 August 1904) was a Austro-Hungarian architect of Italian descent who worked for the Siamese government in the late nineteenth century. He was among the first European architects employed by ...

. In Indonesia, (the former colony of the Dutch East Indies), the Jakarta Cathedral was begun in 1891 and completed in 1901 by Dutch architect Antonius Dijkmans; while further north in the islands of the Philippines, the San Sebastian Church, designed by architects Genaro Palacios and

Gustave Eiffel Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bonickhausen dit Eiffel; ; ; 15 December 1832 – 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway ...

, was consecrated in 1891 in the still Spanish colony. Church building in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

was extensive, with little or no effort to adopt vernacular forms. Robert Gray, the first

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

, wrote; "I am sure we do not overestimate the importance of real Churches built after the fashion of our English churches". He oversaw the construction of some fifty such buildings between 1848 and his death in 1872.

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

saw a later flourishing of the Revival, particularly in church architecture, for example the Metropolitan Cathedral of São Paulo in Brazil by the German Maximilian Emil Hehl, and the Cathedral of La Plata in Argentina.

20th and 21st centuries

The Gothic style dictated the use of structural members in compression, leading to tall, buttressed buildings with interior columns of load-bearing masonry and tall, narrow windows. But, by the start of the 20th century, technological developments such as the

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a " skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The devel ...

, the

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...

and the

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They ar ...

made this approach obsolete. Steel framing supplanted the non-ornamental functions of rib vaults and flying buttresses, providing wider open interiors with fewer columns interrupting the view. Some architects persisted in using Neo-Gothic tracery as applied ornamentation to an iron skeleton underneath, for example in

Cass Gilbert Cass Gilbert (November 24, 1859 – May 17, 1934) was an American architect. An early proponent of skyscrapers, his works include the Woolworth Building, the United States Supreme Court building, the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas and W ...

's 1913

Woolworth Building The Woolworth Building is an early skyscraper, early American skyscraper designed by architect Cass Gilbert located at 233 Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was the tallest building in ...

skyscraper in New York and Raymond Hood's 1922 Tribune Tower in Chicago. The

Tower Life Building The Tower Life Building is a landmark and historic building in Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. Construction of the tower began in 1927 and the building rises and has 31 floors. The building, which opened in 1929, was originally named the Smith ...

in San Antonio, completed in 1929, is noted for the arrays of decorative gargoyles on its upper floors. But, over the first half of the century, Neo-Gothic was supplanted by

, although some modernist architects saw the Gothic tradition of architectural form entirely in terms of the "honest expression" of the technology of the day, and saw themselves as heirs to that tradition, with their use of rectangular frames and exposed iron girders. Liverpool Anglican Cathedral (64928225)

In spite of this, the Gothic Revival continued to exert its influence, simply because many of its more massive projects were still being built well into the second half of the 20th century, such as Giles Gilbert Scott's

Liverpool Cathedral Liverpool Cathedral is the Cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool, and the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. It may be referred to as the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool (as recorded in t ...

and the

(1907–1990).

became a leading force in American Gothic, with his most ambitious project the

Cathedral of St. John the Divine The Cathedral of St. John the Divine (sometimes referred to as St. John's and also nicknamed St. John the Unfinished) is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. It is at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood ...

in New York (claimed to be the largest cathedral in the world), as well as Collegiate Gothic buildings at

. Cram said "the style hewn out and perfected by our ancestors asbecome ours by uncontested inheritance". Though the number of new Gothic Revival buildings declined sharply after the 1930s, they continue to be built.

St Edmundsbury Cathedral St Edmundsbury Cathedral (formally entitled the Cathedral Church of St James and St Edmund) is the cathedral for the Church of England's Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It is the seat of the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and is ...

, the cathedral of Bury St Edmunds in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

, was expanded and reconstructed in a neo-Gothic style between the late 1950s and 2005, and a commanding stone central tower was added. A new church in the Gothic style is planned for St. John Vianney Parish in

Fishers, Indiana Fishers is a city in Fall Creek Township, Hamilton County, Indiana, Fall Creek and Delaware Township, Hamilton County, Indiana, Delaware townships, Hamilton County, Indiana, Hamilton County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2010 United States Cens ...

. The Whittle Building at Peterhouse,

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, opened in 2016, matches the neo-Gothic style of the rest of the courtyard in which it is situated.

Gothic Revival in other decorative arts

Besides architecture, the Gothic Revival also manifested in furniture, metalworks, ceramics and other decorative arts during the 19th century. In France, it was the first reaction against the hegemony of Neoclassicism. During the Restoration (1814–1830) and the Louis-Philippe period (1830-1848), Gothic Revival motifs start to appear in France, together with revivals of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

and of

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

. During these two periods, the vogue for medieval things led craftsmen to adopt Gothic decorative motifs in their work, such as bell

, lancet arches,

trefoil A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with four ring ...

s, Gothic tracery and

rose window Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window ...

s. This style was also as "Cathedral style" ("À la catédrale").

Appreciation

By 1872, the Gothic Revival was mature enough in the United Kingdom that Charles Locke Eastlake, an influential professor of design, could produce ''A History of the Gothic Revival''. Kenneth Clark's, ''The Gothic Revival. An Essay'', followed in 1928, in which he described the Revival as "the most widespread and influential artistic movement which England has ever produced." The architect and writer

Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel (1887 in Cambridge – 21 June 1959 in Westminster, London) was a British architect, writer and musician. Life Harry Stuart Goodhart was born on 29 May 1887 in Cambridge, England. He added the additional name Rende ...

covered the subject of the Revival in an appreciative way in his

Slade Lectures The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the oldest professorship of art and art history at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and University College, London. History The chairs were founded concurrently in 1869 by a bequest from the art collecto ...

in 1934. But the conventional early 20th century view of the architecture of the Gothic Revival was strongly dismissive, critics writing of "the nineteenth century architectural tragedy", ridiculing "the uncompromising ugliness" of the era's buildings and attacking the "sadistic hatred of beauty" of its architects. The 1950s saw further signs of a recovery in the reputation of Revival architecture. John Steegman's study, ''Consort of Taste'' (re-issued in 1970 as ''Victorian Taste'', with a foreword by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ...

), was published in 1950 and began a slow turn in the tide of opinion "towards a more serious and sympathetic assessment." In 1958, Henry-Russell Hitchcock published his ''Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'', as part of the Pelican History of Art series edited by Nikolaus Pevsner. Hitchcock devoted substantial chapters to the Gothic Revival, noting that, while "there is no more typical nineteenth-century product than a Victorian Gothic church", the success of the Victorian Gothic saw its practitioners design mansions, castles, colleges, and parliaments. The same year saw the foundation of the

in England and, in 1963, the publication of ''Victorian Architecture'', an influential collection of essays edited by Peter Ferriday. By 2008, the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Victorian Society, the architecture of the Gothic Revival was more fully appreciated with some of its leading architects receiving scholarly attention and some of its best buildings, such as

's St Pancras Station Hotel, being magnificently restored. The Society's 50th anniversary publication, ''Saving A Century'', surveyed a half-century of losses and successes, reflected on the changing perceptions toward Victorian architecture and concluded with a chapter entitled “The Victorians Victorious”.

Gallery

Europe

File:Schwerin Castle Aerial View Island Luftbild Schweriner Schloss Insel See (cropped).jpg, Schwerin Castle,

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgian Low German: ''Swerin''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the capital and second-largest city of the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as well as of the region of Mecklenburg, after Rostock. ...

, Germany (1845–1857) File:Schloss Schadau am Thunersee.jpg,

Schadau Castle Schadau Castle (german: Schloss Schadau) is a castle on the south side of the Aare near Lake Thun in the city of Thun, Canton Bern, Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance. History It is situated in the ''Schadaupark'' ...

Thun Thun (french: Thoune) is a town and a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located where the Aare flows out of Lake Thun (Thunersee), southeast of Bern. the municipality has almost ...

, Switzerland (1846–1854) File:Wroclaw Glowny train station 05.jpg,

Wrocław Główny railway station Wrocław Główny is the largest and most important passenger train station in the city of Wrocław, in southwestern Poland. Situated at the junction of several important routes, it is the largest railway station in the Lower Silesia Voivodeship, ...

Wrocław Wrocław (; , . german: Breslau, , also known by other names) is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, roughly ...

, Poland (1855–1857) File:Neues Rathaus München 2018.jpg, New Town Hall,

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, Germany (1867–1905) File:St Pancras Railway Station 2012-06-23.jpg,

St Pancras railway station St Pancras railway station (), also known as London St Pancras or St Pancras International and officially since 2007 as London St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It i ...

, London, England (1868) File:Manchester Town Hall from Lloyd St.jpg,

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually house ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

, England (1868–1877) File:Wien Rathaus hochauflösend.jpg,

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria (1872–1883) File:Castelul Sturdza din Miclăușeni.jpg, Sturdza Palace,

Iași County Iași County () is a county (județ) of Romania, in Western Moldavia, with the administrative seat at Iași. It is the most populous county in Romania, after the Municipality of Bucharest (which has the same administrative level as that of a co ...

, Romania (1880-1904) File:Parliament Building (Budapest, Hungary).jpg, Hungarian Parliament Building,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, Hungary (1885–1904) File:Tower Bridge seen from the south bank.jpg,

Tower Bridge Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry with the help of Henry Marc Brunel. It crosses the River Thames close ...

, London, England (1886–1894) File:EstacaoRossioLisboa.JPG, The

Neo-Manueline Neo-Manueline is a revival style of architecture which drew from the 16th century Manueline Late Gothic architecture of Portugal. Neo-Manueline constructions have been built across Portugal, Brazil, and the Lusophone world (the former Portuguese ...

(Portuguese Late Gothic) Rossio Station, Lisbon, Portugal (1891) File:Konkatedrala sv. Petra i Pavla Osijek.jpg, Co-cathedral,

Osijek Osijek () is the fourth-largest city in Croatia, with a population of 96,848 in 2021. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja ...

, Croatia (1898) File:Moscow Immaculate Conception Church asv2019-06 img1.jpg, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, Russia (1901–1911), an example of

revival

North America

File:Church Of Our Lady Immaculate in Guelph, Ontario.jpg, Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate,

Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Well ...

, Canada File:Santa Ana Catedral Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana 2.jpg, Cathedral of Santa Ana (El Salvador) File:Fachada del Templo Expiatorio del Santísimo Sacramento, Guadalajara 13.JPG, Templo Expiatorio del Santísimo Sacramento

Guadalajara, Jalisco Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Mexico, while the Guadala ...

, Mexico File:Princeton (6035183309).jpg,

Rockefeller College John D. Rockefeller 3rd College, or "Rocky", is one of six residential colleges at Princeton University, United States. It was founded in 1982, making it the third residential college to be established at Princeton. It is named for John D. ...

, Princeton, USA File:St Patrick's Cathedral - New York City.jpg, St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, USA File:Parlement du Canada - Edifice du Centre - 004.jpg, Centre Block of the Canadian Parliament Buildings,

, Ontario

South America

File:Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Lujan.jpg, Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina File:Catedral Metropolitana de Sao Paulo 4 Brasil.jpg, The São Paulo Metropolitan Cathedral,

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

, Brazil File:Petropolis-Cathedral6.jpg, Cathedral of São Pedro de Alcântara,

Petrópolis Petrópolis (; ), also known as The Imperial City, is a municipality in the Southeast Region of Brazil. It is located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, northeast of the city of Rio de Janeiro. According to the 2010 National Brazilian Census, Petr ...

, Brazil File:Fachada Basílica del Salvador.JPG, Basilica del Salvador, in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, who ...

, Chile File:Santuario de Las Lajas, Ipiales, Colombia, 2015-07-21, DD 21-23 HDR.jpg, The Las Lajas Sanctuary in southern Colombia File:Capilla cristo-pobre.jpg, Capilla Cristo Pobre, in Jauja, Peru

Australia and New Zealand

File:St. Paul's Cathedral Tower.jpg, St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia File:St Patrick's Cathedral (Gothic Revival Style).jpg,

, Australia File:Sacred Heart Cathedral, Bendigo November 2011.JPG, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Bendigo, Australia File:StMarysSydneyCathedral1.jpg,

St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney The Cathedral Church and Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Mother of God, Help of Christians (colloquially, St Mary's Cathedral) is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney and the seat of the Archbishop of Sydney, curren ...

File:ChristChurchCathedral1 gobeirne.jpg, Christchurch Cathedral,

, New Zealand File:Otago Boys High School.jpg, Otago Boys High School,

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

, New Zealand

Asia

File:Baku kirkha.jpg, Church of the Saviour, Baku, Azerbaijan File:Puducherry Sacred Heart Cathedral 2.JPG, Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Pondicherry Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

, India File:Katedral Jakarta 2016 Bennylin 01.jpg, Jakarta Cathedral, Indonesia File:Basilica of San Sebastian, Manila, Philippines - panoramio.jpg, Basílica Menor de San Sebastián,

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...

, Philippines File:Sacred heart cathedral of guangzhou.jpg,

Sacred Heart Cathedral Sacred Heart Cathedral may refer to: Africa *Sacred Heart Cathedral, Moundou, Chad *Sacred Heart Cathedral, Bamako, Mali *Sacred Heart Cathedral, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo *Sacred Heart Cathedral, Freetown, Sierra Leone *Sacred Heart Cathedra ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong ...

, China File:Government College University, Lahore - Clock tower and main building.jpg, Government College University, Lahore, Pakistan

Decorative arts

Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory - Cup and Saucer - 1998.412 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Cup and saucer; by Pierre Huard; 1827;

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egypt ...

Vase (vase gothique Fragonard) (one of a pair) MET DP169251.jpg, Pair of vases; manufactured 1832, decorated 1844;

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...

, New York Armchair MET DT3866.jpg, Armchair; 1850; Metropolitan Museum of Art Desk MET DT257587.jpg, Desk; 1877; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Footnotes

References

Sources

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External links

Basilique Sainte-Clotilde, Paris

Canada by Design: Parliament Hill, Ottawa
at Library and Archives Canada

Proyecto Documenta's entries for neo-Gothic elements at the Valparaíso's churches
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gothic Revival Architecture American architectural styles Architectural styles British architectural styles Revival architectural styles Victorian architectural styles

Roots

Survival and revival

Decorative

Romanticism and nationalism

Gothic as a moral force

Pugin and "truth" in architecture

Ruskin and Venetian Gothic

Ecclesiology and funerary style

Viollet-le-Duc and Iron Gothic

Collegiate Gothic

Vernacular adaptations and the revival in the Antipodes

New Zealand and Australia

Global Gothic

20th and 21st centuries

Gothic Revival in other decorative arts

Appreciation

Gallery

Europe

North America

South America

Australia and New Zealand

Asia

Decorative arts

Footnotes

References

Sources

Further reading

See also

Sub-varieties of the Gothic Revival style

Locale

External links